Guideline Changes 2017 ICD10CM

Changes in Guidelines for ICD10CM 2017.
The 2017 ICD-10-CM Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting is now available for download on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) website. This latest version includes several changes worth noting.

This year’s guidelines help explain the significant changes to the code set.



Excludes1 Clarified

For example, in Section I.A.12(a), a new paragraph explains an exception to the Excludes1 definition. CMS defines an Excludes1 note as an indication “that the code excluded should never be used at the same time as the code above the Excludes1 note.”

CMS adds for 2017:

An exception to the Excludes1 definition is the circumstance when the two conditions are unrelated to each other. If it is not clear whether the two conditions involving an Excludes1 note are related or not, query the provider. For example, code F45.8, Other somatoform disorders, has an Excludes1 note for ‘sleep related teeth grinding... Read More